A molecule made by trees can seed clouds, suggesting that pre-industrial skies were less sunny than thought.

Molecules released by trees can seed clouds, two experiments have revealed. The findings, published on 25 May in Nature1, 2 and Science3, run contrary to an assumption that the pollutant sulphuric acid is required for a certain type of cloud formation — and suggest that climate predictions may have underestimated the role that clouds had in shaping the pre-industrial climate.

If the results of the experiments hold up, predictions of future climate change should take them into account, says Reto Knutti, a climate modeller at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). For 20 or more years, clouds have been the largest source of uncertainty in understanding how manmade emissions affect the atmosphere, he says.
Nature Podcast

In addition to releasing carbon dioxide, burning fossil fuels indirectly produces sulphuric acid, which is known to seed clouds. So, climate scientists have assumed that since pre-industrial times, there has been a large increase in cloud cover, which is thought to have an overall cooling effect by reflecting sunlight back into space. And they have assumed that this overall cooling effect has partially masked the climate’s underlying sensitivity to rising carbon dioxide levels.

The latest experiments suggest that it may have been cloudier in pre-industrial times than previously thought. If this is so, then the masking effect, and in turn the warming effects of carbon dioxide, might have been overestimated, says Jasper Kirkby, a physicist at the CERN, Europe’s particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, who led one of the experiments.

But Kirkby adds that it is too early to say whether this is true in practice, or by how much, because there are so many factors that play into such projections. “There are many uncertainties; we are only talking about one,” says Kirkby. Knutti says the results will probably not affect the most likely projections of warming, as laid out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Our best estimate is probably still the same," he says...

...About half of these aerosols originate, already in solid form, from Earth’s surface: for instance, dust from deserts, salt crystals from the oceans or soot from combustion. The other half forms anew in the atmosphere from gaseous impurities. The individual gas molecules capture more molecules from the air to form solid particles. If they grow to 50–100 nanometres, water vapour can condense on them.

Until recently, atmospheric scientists thought that only sulphuric acid vapour, which can be produced by volcanic emissions or by burning fossil fuels, could trigger this process. As a result, it was thought that pre-industrial skies were somewhat less cloudy than present ones because they contained less of this pollutant, says Kirkby...

...It is also interesting to speculate whether trees emit these compounds in part because there is a benefit to them in making their own climate, Kirkby says. “This really does touch on the Gaia hypothesis,” he says, referring to the theory that Earth’s life behaves as a single organism that tends to preserve itself. “It’s a beautiful mechanism for trees to control their environment.”

I can only assume you are referring to Earth’s atmosphere as our “space blanket”. So, which position is Earth’s shiny “space blanket” today? Is our “blanket” reversible so our scientists can switch sides or flip it at will?

I’m sure you can do much better than this silly example.

I tried to come up with an analogy that was simple enough for you to comprehend. It looks like I didn't succeed. (Frankly, I didn't expect to.)

Note that the space blanket, even though its temperature is lower than the temperature of the person it is wrapped around, will still keep the person warmer than that person would be without the space blanket, by reflecting infrared radiation back to that person.

Similarly, CO2 in the atmosphere re-radiates infrared back to the Earth, keeping the surface of the Earth warmer than it would be without that atmospheric CO2.

In fact, in the absence of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere), the average temperature of the surface of the Earth would be nearly 60 degrees F colder than it currently is. This from the Stanford University web-site http://nova.stanford.edu/projects/mod-x/id-green.html.

That being said, a treasure-trove of evidence that shows how the entire climate-denial movement is based on fraud and deceit has come to light in the last few months.

I will be putting up a series of posts to this "Fraud" thread to show folks here how climate-denial consists of nothing but fraud and lies.

IOW, I'm going to hijack your thread.

I'll also be putting you adding you to my "ignore" list so that I won't be tempted to waste any more time or electrons responding to your vacuous posts here.

But with his private business dealings, it's an entirely different story. It turns out that Trump wants to build a sea-wall in front of a golf-course of his in Ireland. Now, the obvious question is, "Why?".

Donald Trump calls global warming a hoax, until it threatens his golf course

In January 2014, he publicly wondered how the United States could be spending money to combat what, in his words, was a “GLOBAL WARMING HOAX.”
...
But when it came to protecting his own investments from global warming’s effects, Trump canned the screaming capital letters and jokes. Instead, Trump wants to curtail climate change with a wall.
...
The Trump International Golf Links Ireland, a golf course by the sea in Ireland’s County Clare, faces the Atlantic’s pounding waves and coastal erosion. As Politico reported Monday, the Trump Organization has submitted a permit to build a sea wall, which cites rising sea levels from climate change as a threat.
...
“If the predictions of an increase in sea level rise as a result of global warming prove correct, however, it is likely that there will be a corresponding increase in coastal erosion rates not just in Doughmore Bay but around much of the coastline of Ireland,” the application notes. “In our view, it could reasonably be expected that the rate of sea level rise might become twice of that presently occurring.”

Tell lies about global-warming in public, but privately open up the wallet and spend a bunch of money preparing for the very thing you publicly claim is a fraud. That's the standard M/O for the wealthy individuals and corporations who have been pushing climate-denial lies.

There will be more to come about how climate-denial is based on lies told by people who really do know better.

Anna Kalinsky, the granddaughter of former Exxon climate scientist James Black, has berated the company for bankrolling climate change denial despite her grandfather's attempts to inform the company of the risks of burning fossil fuels for the global climate.

“In 1977 my grandfather was a senior scientist at Exxon. He warned Exxon executives that the world was just a few years away from needing to rethink our energy strategy to prevent destructive climate change,” Kalinsky says.

“Instead, Exxon chose to mislead people about the risks of climate change – and continues to mislead people today. The company says they value their scientists and all the work they do, but that’s pretty hard to believe when they continue to fund organizations – both publicly and anonymously – that spread misinformation about the science.”

....

Back in 1978, almost four decades ago, Black made ominous warnings about the potential perils of climate change to come if humanity did not stem fossil fuel usage and reverse course.

...

Remarking that Black was a “man of science,” Kalinsky offered her thoughts on how Black may feel today, were he still alive, about the direction Exxon took and the “road not taken” once it made scientific discoveries about climate change.

“He told my mother that a company is in trouble when it falls into the hands of the accountants,” Kalinsky stated. “I don't think he'd be proud of the company he'd worked so hard for.”

Tell lies about global-warming in public, but privately open up the wallet and spend a bunch of money preparing for the very thing you publicly claim is a fraud. That's the standard M/O for the wealthy individuals and corporations who have been pushing climate-denial lies.

There will be more to come about how climate-denial is based on lies told by people who really do know better.

Here you go with your myopic view again.

Sea levels could rise, but nothing shows that humans are responsible for the rise.

BWD

__________________
A big problem with wind and solar is the need to store energy for use when needed. Nature has been solving this problem for millions of years, with coal.

I tried to come up with an analogy that was simple enough for you to comprehend. It looks like I didn't succeed. (Frankly, I didn't expect to.)

Note that the space blanket, even though its temperature is lower than the temperature of the person it is wrapped around, will still keep the person warmer than that person would be without the space blanket, by reflecting infrared radiation back to that person.

Similarly, CO2 in the atmosphere re-radiates infrared back to the Earth, keeping the surface of the Earth warmer than it would be without that atmospheric CO2.

In fact, in the absence of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere), the average temperature of the surface of the Earth would be nearly 60 degrees F colder than it currently is. This from the Stanford University web-site http://nova.stanford.edu/projects/mod-x/id-green.html.

That being said, a treasure-trove of evidence that shows how the entire climate-denial movement is based on fraud and deceit has come to light in the last few months.

I will be putting up a series of posts to this "Fraud" thread to show folks here how climate-denial consists of nothing but fraud and lies.

IOW, I'm going to hijack your thread.

I'll also be putting you adding you to my "ignore" list so that I won't be tempted to waste any more time or electrons responding to your vacuous posts here.

Wow. You just don't get how stupid (and if with even the slightest knowledge of truth, fraudulent) these canned points you are pushing actually are.

As a Climate Clown you are kind of dull.

BWD

__________________
A big problem with wind and solar is the need to store energy for use when needed. Nature has been solving this problem for millions of years, with coal.

(First, a quick note -- the "usual suspect" tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists here have been put on my ignore list. Not gonna waste any more time arguing with them.)

Now, for the next installment of the climate-denier fraud chronicles:

In 1968 -- **1968** -- the American Petroleum Institute hired the Stanford Research Institute (then part of Stanford University) to produce a report about pollutants in the atmosphere. A major focus of the report was the potential impact of CO2 emissions.

In 1968, Stanford Reseach Institute (SRI) scientists Elmer Robinson and R.C. Robbins produced a Final Report to the American Petroleum Institute (API) on SRI’s research in the sources, abundance, and fate of gaseous pollutants in the atmosphere. They reserved their starkest warnings to industry leaders for carbon dioxide. Robinson observed that, among the pollutants reviewed, carbon dioxide “is the only air pollutant which has been proven to be global importance to man's environment on the basis of a long period of scientific investigation." Summarizing the findings of the President’s Science Advisory Council, Robinson noted that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels were outstripping the natural CO2 removal processes that keep the atmosphere in equilibrium.
.....
The report warned that rising CO2 would result in increases in temperature at the earth's surface, and that significant temperature increase could lead to melting ice caps, rising seas, and potentially serious environmental damage worldwide.
....
Noting uncertainties about whether particulate pollution would offset some of this warming, SRI warned "…there seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe…” The industry's own consulting scientists then confirmed that the most urgent research need was into technologies that could bring CO2 emissions under control.

Here are excerpts from the report itself (the document is a bitmap image that can't be copy/pasted, so these excerpts will be short).

Quote:

If the Earth's temperature increases significantly, a number of events might be expected to occur, including melting of the Antarctic ice cap, a rise in sea levels...
....
...Revelle makes the point hat man is now engaged in a a vast geophysical experiment with his environment, the Earth. Significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000...
...
It is clear that we are unsure as to what our long-lived pollutants are doing to our environment; however, there seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe.

Folks, the fossil-fuel industry was put on notice **nearly a half century ago** about the potentially serious global consequences of dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. But industry leaders chose to follow the big-tobacco model and lie to the public about the risks of their products in the interest of protecting their own short-term profits, the general public and future generations be damned.

It turns out the paper-trail showing the Exxon corporation was aware of the potential climate impacts of fossil fuel use goes back to the 1950's. Exxon's predecessor Humble Oil published a study investigating the impacts of fossil fuel consumption on atmospheric CO2 levels in 1957.

This 1957 study conclusively demonstrates that, by no later than the 1950s, Humble Oil (now ExxonMobil) was aware of climate risks and actively engaging in climate science. Published by scientists with the Humble Oil Production Research Division, the paper is significant for several reasons. It shows a clear awareness by a leading oil company of the link between fossil fuel burning and rising CO2. It explicitly recognizes the work of Guy Callendar, Hans Suess, and other pioneers in the field. And it both engages and disagrees with Roger Revelle's landmark paper on ocean-atmosphere balance.

The authors of the study thought that the oceans absorb and hold enough CO2 to delay the worst climate impacts, but they were proven incorrect on that point by Dr. Roger Revelle.

Nonetheless, the Exxon corporate organization was quite aware of the solid science linking CO2 to potential climate-change impacts for *decades* before that company started funding climate-denial "front" groups to spread propaganda to mislead the public.

When the tobacco industry's lies were uncovered and tobacco companies were found liable for violating the RICO statute by fraudulently covering up smoking health risks (United States v. Philip Morris), those tobacco companies were hit with multi-billion-dollar penalties.

The same should happen to Exxon and other fossil-fuel companies that engaged in a big-tobacco-style campaign of deception to mislead the public about the climate risks of their products, except in this case, appropriate damages would be in the trillions.

Here is a statement made to the House Space, Science, and Technology
Subcommittee on Environment, yesterday by Charles McConnell, a former Department of Energy Assistant Secretary and "greenhouse effect" believer.

Suggesting that it is possible for someone to believe the "ghg" myth and still be sensible.

Is caerbannog's rabid propaganda and fondness of simplistic nonsense a contemptible attempt to defraud, or just a sign of extraordinary gullibility?

__________________
A big problem with wind and solar is the need to store energy for use when needed. Nature has been solving this problem for millions of years, with coal.